It is clear from the New Testament (Mk
1:29-31; Mt 8:14-15; Lk 4:38-39; 1 Tim 3:2, 12; Tit 1:6) that at least the
Apostle Peter had been married, and that bishops, presbyters and deacons of the
Primitive Church were often family men. It is also clear from epigraphy, the
testimony of the Fathers, synodal legislation, papal decretals and other sources
that in the following centuries, a married clergy, in greater or lesser numbers
was a normal feature of the life of the Church. Even married popes are known to
us.1 And yet, paradoxically, one has to desist, when faced with this
incontrovertible fact, from assuming that this necessarily excluded the
co-existence of an obligatory celibacy discipline.

In the patristic era, clerical celibacy,
strictly speaking meant the inability to enter marriage once a higher Order had
been received. The first legislative expression of this is found in the eastern
councils of Ancyra (314), c. 10, and Neocaesarea (ca. 314-325), c. 1, for
deacons and priests respectively. An Armenian collection of canons, probably
from 365, includes this prohibition of marriage2 and it is clearly
expressed in the Apostolic Constitutions and Apostolic Canons of the late fourth
century.3 Canon 14 of the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451) likewise
endorses this discipline (albeit indirectly), and it is found in other documents
of the fifth and subsequent centuries which consider the practice to be an
ancient and timeless tradition.4

At first sight this insistence, with its
serious canonical penalties, on the law of what would eventually be called the
«impediment of orders to contracting marriage» is curious for its apparent
lack of scriptural foundation. At best there is the injunction from the Pastoral
epistles, «man of one wife» (1 Tim 3:2, 12; Tit 1:6), which would prohibit
only a widower cleric from remarrying, but in actual fact this was generally
interpreted by patristic authorities as being a prohibition of ordaining
remarried laymen.5 Theodore of Mopsuestia and Theodoret of Cyrrhus
stand apart, however, in that they do attest to a different tradition of
interpretation. St Paul, according to them, was concerned only with marital
fidelity and not with a prohibition of ordaining the remarried.6 Nonetheless,
the tendency was to understand strict monogamy as being, together with other
qualities required of the wife, a guarantee that the future deacon or priest
would be able to live chastely.7

Among the legislators of the West, there seems
to be a curious lack of interest, given the legislative activity of the East, in
the matter of contracting marriage after ordination. Among individual authors
the first hint of this rule is in the Philosophoumena of Hippolytus of
Rome (d. 235) where Pope Callistus is accused of unforgivable innovations in
ecclesiastical discipline, including the ordination of the remarried. Hippolytus
then adds: «And even if a member of the clergy did marry, he could, as far as
Callistus was concerned, remain a cleric, as if he had not sinned».8 Indirectly,
and independently of the truth of these accusations, we learn of what, in the
author’s mind, was the traditional discipline. A further reference is found in
the Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti of Ambrosiaster who lived
under the pontificate of Pope Damasus (366-84). He writes, a propos of
objections to priestly continence, «But people might say: if it is permitted
and good to marry, why should priests not be authorized to take wives? In other
words, why should ordained men not be permitted to be united (to wives)?»9
The significance of the second sentence of this quotation, in relation to
the first, can be better appreciated if read in the light of a Roman document of
the following century. Pope Leo the Great writes to Bishop Rusticus of Narbonne (458/9):

The law of continence is the same for the
ministers of the altar, for the bishops and for the priests; when they were (still)
lay people or lectors, they could freely take a wife and beget children. But
once they have reached the ranks mentioned above, what had been permitted is no
longer so.10

Introduced here is the technical expression
‘law of continence’ (lex continentiae). It can also be called the law
of celibacy in a ‘wide’ sense. Early Western legislation tends to focus on
clerical continence as specifically applied to married clergy: the discipline of
abstinence from marital relations. If a bishop, priest or deacon (and subdeacon
from the fifth century onwards) was prohibited from having sexual relations once
in orders, then it is obvious that his commitment to continence would be the
major impediment to subsequent marriage (quite apart from the general disfavour
shown towards second marriage). For there could be no real marriage unless it
was potentially open to sexual consummation. The same law of continence would
also impede the unmarried deacon or priest from marrying. The laws, so clearly
expressed in the East, prohibiting marriage to the already ordained may thus be
reasonably understood to be but the reverse expression of this more basic
discipline of continence. This possibility needs to be taken into account when
reconstructing the history of clerical celibacy.

Although perhaps strange to our own modern
ways of thinking, absolute marital continence was far from unknown or unesteemed
in patristic times. Tertullian, himself a married man, informs us in his
Catholic period, of lay people who practise continence within marriage «pro
cupiditate regni coelestis».11So do Jerome and Augustine
in the following century.12 The rapid growth of monasticism and an
attraction to the ascetic life led many couples to renounce their intimacy and
to enter a monastery13 or to live in continence within more domestic
settings. Church authorities had to intervene decisively when the enthusiasm for
continence was deemed excessive and tainted with heretical motives, but at the
same time praising those who lived the life of continence for the right motives.14
Four centuries later the Second Nicene Council (787) would still endorse
the possibility of monastic vocations for the married.15 Neither
should one forget the continence that the separated and divorced were required
to live. Augustine did not hesitate to invoke the example of some of the married
clergy, who had had their difficulties in adjusting to a life of continence, in
order to encourage men separated from their wives to live continently. He also
applies the celibacy logion «eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of
heaven» (Mt 19:12) to divorcees.16

Clerical continence in the West

a. Fourth century legislation

Convincing testimonies to the normative nature
of clerical continence in the fourth century can be found in individual Western
patristic authors (such as Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome). The first known example
of actual legislation is c. 33 of the Spanish Council of Elvira, the usual date
of which is given as ca. 305. It reads:

We decree that all bishops, priests and
deacons in the service of the ministry are entirely forbidden to have conjugal
relations with their wives and to beget children; should anyone do so, let him
be excluded from the honour of the clergy.17

There is a similar canon which certain
manuscripts ascribe to the First Council of Aries (314), considered to be a sort
of General Council of the West. Canon 29 reads:

Moreover, (concerned with) what is worthy,
pure, and honest, we exhort our brothers (in the episcopate) to make sure that
priests and deacons have no (sexual) relations with their wives, since they
are serving the ministry every day. Whoever will act against this decision,
will be deposed from the honour of the clergy.18

The wording of these canons does not
immediately suggest that an innovation is being introduced, and it would be an
error in historical procedure to maintain apriori that such was
the case. The seriousness of the implications for the life of the clergy, the
absence of justification for the strictness of the discipline and the canonical
penalty attached, would suggest, on the contrary, that the Church authorities
were concerned with the maintenance and not the introduction of this rule.
The important papal decretals of the fourth century, which indicate the rule for
all the West — Directa (385) and Cum in unum (386) of Pope
Siricius; Dominus inter of Innocent I (or Damasus?), and the Synod of
Carthage (390) — were in fact emphatic that clerical continence belonged to
immemorial, even apostolic, tradition.19 Patristic writings are often
explicit in considering the apostles as models of the priesthood. Yet those who
might have been married were thought not to have lived other than in continence?20

b. The fifth to the seventh centuries

As with other juridical institutions of the
Church, with time clerical continence developed sharper and more defined
outlines. From the fifth to the seventh centuries much provincial conciliar
activity is seen in the West where both the obligation to continence is
reaffirmed (indicating infringement), and greater precision, taking into account
changed circumstances, is given to the law. Canonical collections would
circulate and consciousness of legislating in conformity with a wider legal
patrimony and with ancient tradition is sometimes made explicit.21

One of the interesting features of legislation
that appears throughout this period is the implicit or even explicit inclusion
of a continent wife among that class of women that c. 3 of the First Ecumenical
Council of Nicaea (325) had characterized as beyond suspicion: «The
great Council has absolutely forbidden bishops, priests and deacons — in other
words, all the members of the clergy — to have with them a sister-companion (syneisaktos)
with the exception of a mother, a sister, an aunt, or, lastly, only those
persons who are beyond any suspicion.» The wife, like the husband, was
technically ‘converted’, conversio being the change of life that
follows on the profession or public promise of continence.22 It is in
mid-fifth century Gaul that an explicit public declaration of the commitment to
continence first appears.23 This was to prevent excuses of ignorance
of the obligation which previously had been implicit in the reception of orders.
The wife (who in the Gallic Church was termed a presbytera, diaconissa,
subdiaconissa or even episcopia according to the status of her
husband)24 was to live as a ‘sister’ in a brother-sister
relationship?25 Her rights were protected as ordination could not go
ahead without her agreement.26 Her promise to live in continence was
also an impediment to future marriage.27

Cohabitation of husband and wife had been
given the explicit backing of papal authority. Leo the Great wrote in 458-9: «...in
order for the union (of bishops, priests, deacons) to change from carnal to
spiritual, they must, without sending away their wives, live with them as if
they did not have them, so that conjugal love be safeguarded and nuptial
activity cease.»28 Fifth and sixth century imperial legislation also
endorses cohabitation, although without specifying its nature,29 as
does the Eastern Apostolic Canon 6(5): «Let no bishop, priest or deacon
send his spouse away under the pretext of piety...», part of a collection of
canons, of Syrian or Palestinian origin, which had considerable influence on the
Churches of the fifth and sixth centuries. The Byzantine Church, at the end of
the seventh century, would interpret this canon as authorizing marital
relations.

Continent cohabitation expressed trust in the
nobility of human love to combine marital affection with the values of the
consecrated clerical state. Paulinus of Nola (d. 431) and Pseudo-Jerome (ca.
417?) indicate a warm spirituality for those embracing this new life.30 Yet
the difficulties of the discipline were not unappreciated by the Church
authorities. The necessary conditions for this life was a constant concern, Pope
Gregory the Great deeming it «harsh and inopportune» (durum atque
incompetens) to expect its observance from the unprepared.31 A
return to conjugal relations, after all, was often considered to be as serious a
sin as adultery,32 the cleric being punished by reduction to the lay
state. Councils also occupied themselves with the details of sleeping
arrangements to avoid possible scandal to the faithful.33 A shortage
of vocations due to the rapid growth of the Church was not to be taken as an
excuse for mitigating traditional rules.34 Finally, because of the
real possibilities of incontinence, and departing from earlier practice, total
physical separation would be recommended35 or even sometimes
required.36

Clerical continence in the East

I. Patristic testimonies

Any direct evidence for rules or customs of
marital continence in the East comes from patristic writers rather than from
Councils. However, one must bear in mind the possible implicit presence of the
rule in the tradition of the impediment of orders to contracting marriage. The
Persian Church (which was outside the Byzantine Empire and became Nestorian) did,
however, legislate, in the late fifth century, explicitly against the
practice of clerical marital continence, at the same time authorizing those
already in orders to contract marriage. The Council of Mar Acacius (486), which
ratified a similar decision of the Council of Beth Lafath (484), recognized the antiquity
of these traditions of celibacy, but abrogated them, rather than as in the
West, try to reinforce them. The Council did this in an effort to eradicate or
regularize clerical incontinence.37 The previous obligatory character
of continence is strongly implied, as is the intrinsic relationship between
continence and the impediment of orders.

Eusebius of Caesarea, a prominent bishop at
the Council of Nicaea, writes in the Demonstratio Evangelica, I, 9 (3
15-325): «It is fitting, according to Scripture, ‘that a bishop be the
husband of an only wife’. But this being understood, it behoves consecrated
men, and those who are at the service of God’s cult, to abstain thereafter
from conjugal intercourse with their wives.» St Jerome, who had a good
knowledge of the Eastern Churches, writes to the priest Vigilantius (406): «What
would the Eastern Churches do? What would (those of) Egypt and the Apostolic See
do, they who never accept clerics unless they are virgins or continent men, or
if they had had a wife, (accept them only) if they give up matrimonial life...»
(Adversus Vigilantium, 2).

Epiphanius (315-403), born in Palestine and
consecrated bishop of Constantia in Cyprus, condemns all forms of encratism but
nonetheless insists that priests themselves are required to live continently, as
regulated (he believed) by the apostles. Priestly continence is observed, he
maintains, wherever the ecclesiastical canons are adhered to, human weakness and
the shortage of vocations being inadequate reasons for clergy to contravene the
rule.38

Synesius. of Ptolemais, of the Libyan Church,
knows that he is expected to live in continence with his wife if made bishop,39
and Palladius the historian reports that a synod presided over by John
Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople in the year 400, condemned Anton inus,
Bishop of Ephesus, for doing what was forbidden by the ‘holy laws’ including
resuming common life with his wife.40

Other testimonies to be taken into special
account include Origen (d. ca. 253) (23rd homily on Numbers, 6th homily on
Leviticus), Ephraem Syrus (Carmina Nisibena, 18 and 19 [ca. 363]),
and the Syriac Doctrina Addei (ca. 400).

Caution, of course, has to be exercised in not
reading into these texts more than they contain, and one has to recognize that
local practices do not necessarily imply a general rule. Furthermore, other
tests need to be considered, such as Clement of Alexandria, Stromata III,
12; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 12, 25; Athanasius, Letter
to Dracontius which do not obviously suggest the possibility of a general
rule. Indeed, since the end of the nineteenth century such texts have been used
to demonstrate the existence of an early general law of continence in the East.
Polemical or confessional interests aside, it can be said that modern tools of
scholarship, not available in the past, have allowed doubt to be cast on the
certainty of these conclusions too.41

b. Legislation to the seventh century

The only law dealing with continence
promulgated at the Council of Nicaea was canon 3, dealing with the categories of
women a cleric was permitted to live with. The famous story of Bishop Paphnutius
of Egypt, first recounted by the Greek historian Socrates in the mid-fifth
century, relates how at the Council a proposal to impose obligatory clerical
continence on all the Churches was opposed by the bishop and then rejected.42
But this story has been proved to be a myth, without any historical
foundation.43 Socrates’ statement (HE, V, 22) that
continence was a voluntary matter in the East, and the bishops were held to no
law prohibiting them to continue having children, is likewise unreliable.44

Canon 10 of Ancyra (314) allows the marriage
of a deacon if he makes known his desire at ordination, otherwise it is
forbidden. This exception was not accepted by the Chalcedonian Christian
Churches (Chalcedon [451], c. 14) and recently doubts have been raised over the
authenticity of the canon in its present formulation.45 Canon 8 of
Neocaesarea (314-325) requires the expulsion from the clerical home of an
adulterous wife, yet a similar law was found in the West within the setting of
clerical continence.46 Gangra (ca. 340), c. 4, anathematized those
who refused to receive communion from a married priest and c. 6 of the Apostolic
Canons, from the late fourth century, prohibited sending a wife away under the
pretext of piety. Canon 51 (not accepted as authentic in the West) deposed a
cleric who kept continence for heretical reasons rather than from ‘personal
discipline’. The background to these laws was the rejection of heretical
encratism, and nothing certain can be said concerning the authorisation (or
otherwise) of marital relations in these canons.

Emperor Justinian, on the other hand,
considers priestly continence to be the rule, even if it is not always observed.
Writing of those clerics who contract marriage after orders, he states:
«...some of them (i.e., priests, deacons, subdeacons) despise the holy canons
and beget children from the wives with whom, according to the priestly rule,
they are not permitted to have relations.»47 Children born after
ordination were declared illegitimate. The Emperor also went further than the
ecclesiastical canons in requiring bishops to be without progeny, for fear of
alienation of Church property.48 Bishops would thus preferably be
chosen from the ranks of unmarried clerics and monks.49 Childless
married bishops were to live away from their wives.50

The Quinisext Synod, or Synod ‘in Trullo’
(691), is of very special significance. It followed Justinian in requiring
bishops to be separated from their wives (c. 12). This was to be done by common
agreement before their consecration, and the wives would enter a monastery where
they could become deaconesses (c. 48). The requirement of childlessness was
ignored (this was abrogated by Emperor Leo VI two centuries later). Widespread
ignorance among clergy of the laws governing marriage is acknowledged and
traditional discipline re-asserted (c. 3). But married priests, deacons and
subdeacons are authorized to have marital relations, except during the periods
when they serve at the altar (c. 13). Priests in ‘barbarian’ lands who live
in continence are required to separate from their wives (c. 30). With regard to
c. 13, which is of special importance to subsequent tradition, two canonical
authorities are invoked to authorize marital relations: c. 6 of the Apostolic
Canons (with bishops, however, excluded) and the canons of the Codex Canonum
Ecclesiae Africanae, compiled in 419. The Codex, however, is clearly
misinterpreted. The canon from the Synod of Carthage (390) which is quoted had
declared perpetual continence (...continentes esse in omnibus) to be «what
the apostles taught and what antiquity itself has observed». Here it is
presented as saying the same of ‘temporary’ continence. The Trullan Synod is
regarded in the East as part of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (681-2), thus
having supreme legislative authority. It has since remained the definitive
statement on clerical marriage. Rome, on the other hand, immediately objected to
the canons which were against Western discipline and to this day has not
accepted them as belonging to the ecumenical heritage.51

Early motives for clerical continence

The Trullan Synod highlights service at the
altar as the dominant motive for clerical continence, even if only practised on
a temporary basis. Indeed, the patristic theology of the priesthood, stressing
its intercessorial and mediatorial function favoured, on scriptural grounds, a
connection between dedicated continence and priestly prayer.52 The
abstinence recommended by St Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:5, in order to devote
oneself to prayer, was one such scriptural ground. This also figured prominently
in the history of married lay spirituality. A further prominent argument,
appearing first in the fourth century papal decretals and in St Ambrose, was a
counter-argument to the ‘judaizing’ argument of those priests unwilling to
embrace continence. These justified their behaviour by calling upon the example
of the Levites of the Old Testament. The swift response was that the Christian
priesthood was more than a continuation of the Levitical priesthood — it was
its perfection, being spiritual and non-hereditary. Hence the a fortiori case:
if the Levites practised temporary continence when in the sanctuary, so much
more should Christian priests, always ready to serve, practise continence.53

One scriptural quotation notable for its
absence in the early texts is the Matthean logion: «eunuchs for the sake
of the kingdom» (Mt 19:12), which is never directly applied to priests. This
omission suggests an attitude that priestly continence was not to be considered
a voluntary perfection of the priestly state, but rather to be an intrinsic
characteristic. Pope Siricius (385) called its relation to priesthood ‘indissoluble’54
Subsequent Western canonical tradition, by its refusal to mitigate the law,
seems to have displayed a similar conviction.

It is true that, in the patristic age, the
marked sense of the transcendence of God led to an anthropology that relativized
many of the values of marriage to the things of this world. Relative to the
things of God, sexual activity could be described in terms that draw on the
vocabulary of Levitical ritualism but which offend the linguistic sensibilities
of our own time.55 And yet it would be wrong to see in this use of
language a veiled encratism, and in the discipline of priestly continence an
attack on marriage. The fact that married men, with sexual experience, were
chosen for the ministry showed the Church’s respect towards conjugal values.56
The new exclusive relationship to the Church inherent in the nature of
priestly ordination would mean, however, that thenceforth the type of
exclusivity implicit in sexual relations had to be renounced.57

The Eastern Churches from the seventh century

The mandatory norms of continence for
Byzantine married priests following the Trullan Synod were generally patterned
after the norms that then existed for married lay people: one to three days of
‘eucharistic’ continence as well as continence during the periods of
fasting.58 Reception of communion was not frequent among the faithful
during the Middle Ages; the continence rule also discouraged attempts by married
priests to celebrate the Eucharist daily. Non-monastic priests were expected to
be married. From the eleventh century norms appear which prohibit the ordination
to the parochial ministry of an unmarried man. Those celibates who worked
closely with the bishop would be unmarried priests who had taken the monastic
profession. Thus arose, in later Russia, the distinction between the ‘black’-(monastic)
clergy and the ‘white’ (parochial) clergy. Those married clergy who became
widowers were compelled to leave their ministry and enter a monastery. The Synod
of Moscow (1666-1667) abrogated this requirement, at the same time authorizing
remarriage with reduction to the state of a minor cleric. Bishops, in keeping
with the spirit, if not the letter, of Trullan legislation, were chosen from
amongst monastic candidates, although, exceptionally, a celibate layman would be
ordained after making monastic profession.

More research is needed to understand properly
the developments in the non-Chalcedonian Churches under Islamic rule. It is
reasonable to assume, however, that whilst under Byzantine rule imperial
legislation was required to be observed. By the High Middle Ages a tradition had
developed in the Coptic Church of ordaining children to the diaconate. They were
permitted to marry after reaching puberty. The Nestorians, who were outside the
Empire, continued from the fifth century to have a married clergy not bound to
strict continence. All Orthodox Churches today have a married clergy.

The Eastern Churches in union with Rome
followed the norms of temporary continence appropriate to each respective
tradition. The ordination of unmarried men was encouraged by the Eastern
hierarchies, bishops also being selected from non-monastic candidates. The
discipline of temporary continence has been largely ignored in the twentieth
century, presumably because of the assimilation to contemporary Roman Catholic
practice of daily Eucharist. Special decrees have been issued by the Holy See in
respect to married clergy outside the territory of origin of their Church, and
the present law is found in the Codex Canonum
Ecclesiarum Orientalium.

The Western Church from the seventh century

From the seventh century to the time of the
Gregorian Reform and the legislation of the Lateran Councils, Church authorities
made constant efforts to reform clerical mores. The whole fabric of clerical
life, not just the life of continence, was deeply affected by the new social
structures and changed conditions that followed the disintegration of imperial
organization. The tone of the disciplinary measures taken by the hierarchy was
that of conservation and reformation, not innovation. Canonical collections,
such as the Dionysiana, were circulated widely, reminding bishops of the
discipline of earlier centuries. Some over-zealous reformers skilfully
fabricated a number of texts, claiming they had been lost, to add even greater
weight to the existing sources. These formed part of the Pseudo-Isidorian
Forgeries (ca. 850), the decretals of which had particular influence.
They were accepted because of the widely-held conviction that they corresponded
to the spirit of traditional legislation. Penitential books and the Capitularies
of the Frankish bishops also expressed the need to conserve established
discipline, as did the rulings of many regional councils and diocesan synods as
well as the interventions of the popes.59 Patristic sources are
sometimes quoted by councils and some, such as the Council of Metz (888) and the
Council of Mainz (888), prohibited cohabitation even with wives living in
continence.

The Gregorian Reform, enthusiastically
encouraged by the monasteries, was a systematic effort to strike at the roots of
abuses in the Church. It was directed against simony, ‘Nicolaitism’ (priests
living in marriage) and also lay investiture. The success of the Reform was
largely due to the uninhibited exercise of papal authority, by Gregory VII and
his successors, over the bishops who had allowed traditional discipline to be
ignored or forgotten. This period is also characterized by the appearance of
theoretical attacks on priestly celibacy, with corresponding counter-arguments:
the libelli de lite. One argument used by the opponents to the reform was
the story of Paphnutius at the Council of Nicaea. Gregory VII condemned this at
the Roman Synod of 1077 as a falsification of history.

Of the numerous synods convoked throughout
Europe during the eleventh and twelfth centuries to enforce with rigour the
neglected law, the most notable are the First Lateran Council (1123) and the
Second Lateran Council (1139), considered as ecumenical in Roman tradition.
Lateran I made into general law the prohibition of cohabiting with wives (c. 7).
Lateran II, c. 7, reiterating the declaration of the Council of Pisa (1135), also
declared marriages contracted subsequent to ordination to be not only prohibited,
but non-existent (... matrimonium non esse censemus). At times, this
Council is wrongly interpreted as having introduced for the first time the
general law of celibacy, with only unmarried men being admitted to the
priesthood. Yet what the Council was doing, in a more pointed way, was
re-emphasizing the law of continence (... ut autem lex continentiae et
Deo placens munditia in ecciesiasticis personis et sacris personis dilatetur...)60Subsequent legislation, however, continues to deal with questions relating
to married men ordained secundum legem, not contra
legem.

The principle sources for this legislation are
the Quinque Compilationes Antiquae and the decretals of Gregory IX. These
decretals form part of the Corpus Iuris Canonici, a work completed in the
fourteenth century and which influenced law-making until the appearance of the
1917 Code of Canon Law. From these sources, we learn that from the time
of Alexander III (1159-1181) married men were not, as a rule, allowed to have
ecclesiastical benefices; a lower cleric who married would have his benefice
withdrawn, but not his right to subdiaconate ordination on the condition that he
discontinues his marital life. A son of a priest (considered legitimate if born
before ordination) was prohibited from succeeding to his father’s benefice.
Young wives and the wives of bishops were to agree at the time of ordination to
enter a convent.61 The rights of the wife were also protected.

In 1322 Pope John XXII insisted that no one
bound in marriage — even if unconsummated — could be ordained unless there
was full knowledge of the requirements of Church law. If the free consent of the
wife had not been obtained, the husband, even if already ordained, was to be
reunited with his wife, exercise of his ministry being barred.62 One
of the factors that must have contributed to the eventual universal practice of
ordaining only unmarried men would have been the assumption that a wife would
not want to give up her marital rights. Hence the irregularitas ex defectu
libertatis of a married man, which became a formal impediment (impedimentum
simplex) only in the twentieth century with the promulgation of the Codex
Iuris Canonici (1917), was not due to the marriage bond per se. It
was due to this assumption of unwillingness and inability to separate. From
1917, all cases of dispensation from the impediment were reserved to the Holy
See. But those receiving dispensation were not authorized by that fact to
continue with marital relations.63

The decretals and other parts of the Corpus
Iuris Canonici provided the guidelines for synodal activity, concubinage
being a persistent problem for the authorities. Opposition to the law of the
Church was not lacking and occasionally well-respected figures argued for a
mitigation of the law to help solve the problems of clerical indiscipline (Panormitanus,
at the time of the Council of Basle [1417-1437], for example). The example of
the practice of the East was given as a precedent, although it is unlikely that
there was a proper understanding of this discipline.64 Similar calls
for mitigation were heard at the time of the Reformation. They included
humanists such as Erasmus, theologians such as Cajetan de Vio, and secular
authorities with pragmatic and political aims in mind: Charles V, Ferdinand I,
Maximilian II. The crisis precipitated by the Reformers was doctrinal as well as
disciplinary. Zwingli and Martin Luther made the abolition of clerical celibacy
a key element to their reform, but this was also related to the dismantling of
the traditional theology of the sacramental priesthood.

In the third and final period of the Council
of Trent (1562-3), and despite considerable pressures, all suggestions
that the Catholic Church should modify and mitigate its rules of celibacy were
rejected. In Session XXIV on 11 November 1563, the Fathers upheld the
prohibition of clerical marriage (c. 9), adding (concerning the difficulties):
«For God would not deny the gift to those who duly ask for it (the gift of
chastity), nor allow us to be tempted beyond our strength.» They also rejected
the thesis that the marital state should be considered better than that of
celibacy (c. l0).65 The Council, in Session XXIII, also voted in
favour of founding seminaries to prepare candidates from their youth for the
celibate life. The discipline of continence by this time had meant in practice
that only an unmarried man would be ordained. This is also shown in the
discussions of the Council, for example when one theologian, Desiderius de S.
Martino, concerned by the shortage of priests, suggested the possibility of
ordaining married men provided the wives gave consent and that they and their
husbands lived in continence. But the measure was not deemed expedient.66

The decrees of the Council were not
immediately accepted in all nations but with time they did bring about a general
observance of the law of celibacy, thanks in no small measure to their
provisions for the better training of the clergy. The Enlightenment brought
fresh assaults against clerical celibacy and after the First Vatican Council,
the Old Catholics, separating themselves from Rome, abolished the rule. Despite
the pressures on the Catholic Church to relax the law of celibacy, it has always
resisted. Pope Benedict XV declared, in his Consistorial Allocution of 16
December 1920, that the Church considered celibacy to be of such importance that
it could never abolish it.67 Following Vatican II, the Church has
made an exception for married deacons of mature age and for individual former
non-Catholic clergymen, following a precedent set by Pope Pius XII.68

NOTES

1. For example Pope Hormisdas (5 14-23),
father to Pope Silverius, his successor.

7. Second marriage was always thought of in
the early Church as being a concession to incontinence. Some Fathers also
interpreted «man of one wife» as being propter continentiam futuram; Siricius,
Cum in unum decretal (Ad episcopos Africae); Ambrose, Ep. 63,
63; Ambrosiaster, In Epist. ad Timotheum 1, 111, 12-13; Epiphanius, Adv.
Haer., 59, 4.

15. Canon 20 reads in part: «If there are
persons who wish to renounce the world and follow the monastic life along with
their relatives, the men should go off to a male monastery and their wives
enter a female monastery, for God is surely pleased with this.» N. Tanner SJ
(ed), Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol.1 Sheed & Ward —‘Georgetown
U.P. 1990, pp. 153-4.

19. «The question is not one of ordering
new precepts, but we wish through this letter to have people observe those
that either through apathy or laziness on the part of some have been neglected.
They are, however, matters that have been established by apostolic
constitution, and, by a constitution of the Fathers.» Cum
in unum (Ad episcopos Africae):

55. In the Ad Gallos episcopos or Doininus
Inter decretal, the Roman Pontiff (Innocent or Damasus?) states: «...if
intercourse is defiling (pollutio), it is obvious that the priest must
be ready to carry out his celestial functions so that he himself not be found
impure», PL 13, 11 86a; P. Coustant, Epistolac, pp. 691.

58. For a fuller discussion on the matters
raised in this section, cf R. Cholij, Clerical celibacy in East and West, pp.
106-179.

59. A.M. (Card.) Stickler, The evolution
of the discipline of celibacy in the Western Church from the end of the
patristic era to the Council of Trent, I. Coppens (ed.), Priesthood and
celibacy, Milan/Rome 1971, pp. 503-597 (transl. from Sacerdoce et
céllibat: Etudes historiques et théologiques (BibI. Eph. Theol. Lay.), Louvain
1971).